Meeting on morality of spies

We had the Ideas Cafe last night discussing the morality of spies and undercover agents.

The utilitarian argument of national security and the need to protect ourselves from bad people was the prevailing argument. The end justified the means.

This is so different from our usual notion of individual rights, privacy, and just plain human decency and honesty. 

The idea that got me thinking was Shula's point that countries have to deal with other countries where there is no contract or agreement with each other. There is often a lack of trust as these are two sovereign entities with no obligation to do anything for the other party.

Without a social contract, there are no rules and no way of anticipating outcomes, or talking about predictable rules of behavior.  Therefore it is important to have spies to monitor the other country to get knowledge and early warning of what is to come.

The meeting discussion moved around to various other branches but I did not get a satisfactory conclusion of how the state can force its citizens to follow the rule of law and yet break some of those same rules of law with its spies operating in other countries.

It is only after the meeting that it came to me that spies and undercover agents operates by the rules of jungle where survival at any cost is the rule.

By contrast, stable, civilized society operating under the consistent rule of law is completely opposite. Citizens agree to conduct themselves in an environment of trust and relying on the government and judicial systems to settle disputes. In return, these citizens no longer need to arm themselves, keep tap of possible enemies, and can concentrate on improving their lives in other ways.

Countries do not subject themselves to a world government and system of laws because of concern for loss of sovereignty, have not contract with the other countries and therefore must go back to assuming the worst and be constantly vigilant.

The same applies to the criminal element in our society that decids to operate outside of the social contract that most of us operate under.  Law enforcement agencies therefore have to walk this fine line of deciding whether they are dealing with people who are abiding by the law or people who are not.  For those who are not, the law of the jungle applies and undercover agents are required to deal with them.

All this also underscores how wasteful the law of the jungle is compared to a trusted environment where everyone agrees to a civil code with predictable outcomes.

We want to enjoy the efficiency, growth, and stability of the lawful society but it is always tempting for the free rider elements of our society to enrich themselves by not following the rules.

When it comes to the international scene, there are no governing body to ensure predictable outcomes.

Maybe that is the argument for countries to form alliances, trade pacts, unions so that they can at least operate more predictably within the alliances. The European Union more or less eliminated the borders protocol for the countries in that union and Brussels set out uniform practices for their member countries in various practices within the union.

In the perfect world, we all prosper by subjecting ourselves to predictable rules of conduct to achieve stability and efficiency.

In the real world, there is discord and free riders trying to gain from the compliant majority.

This leads ideally into next weeks discussions on spam and virus on our computer and internet system, whether it is inevitable, and whether it can be eliminated.